Luxury Bus Owners Seek Buhari’s Intervention on Highway Security

The Association of Luxury Bus Owners (ALBON), has appealed to the Federal Government to immediately contain the rising cases of armed robbery on various highways.

The association, which was reacting to the killing of the driver of a Jos-bound luxury bus by robbers, at a checkpoint along Ugbokolo road in Benue State, recently, said many of its drivers, conductors and passengers had been murdered in similar circumstances in the past few weeks.

ALBON President, Sir Dan Okemuo, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate 24-hour surveillance on the highways in order to make mass transportation safer and more secure for both operators and the travelling public.

“These attacks occur at different areas of the country and have increased in both intensity and viciousness, resulting in the death of many of our innocent drivers, bus conductors and passengers. The latest was this morning (last Saturday),” stating that last weekend’s involved a member’s bus on its way to Jos from Aba.

The late victim, Nonso Nweze, was driving the luxury bus belonging to a transport firm, Chi-Boy Express, from Aba to Jos, when he encountered the robbery gang at Ugbokolo.

An eye-witnessed disclosed that the incident happened at a checkpoint usually manned by policemen, recounting that angry motorists barricaded both sides of the highway for hours until a top state government official intervened to restore the flow of traffic.

A similar incident, he said happened, from early morning till about noon two months ago, at Okada on the Ore-Benin road, following the killing of a luxury bus driver during a robbery operation.

According to the association, robbers attack luxury buses on all the busy inter-state routes, across the country, but that “the most notorious roads” in recent times were: LagosOre-Benin expressway, especially the area covering Ofosu, Okada Town and Benin by-pass; Okene-Lokoja; and Jos-Akwanga-Lafia Makurdi, especially at Kadoroko.